walking speed outside of combat

[Hormalakh]

I know that the current walking speed is supposed to be "match to slowest" and i've read where Josh has stated that if you walk too fast, it could be dangerous or it might lose some of the "adventure" or "exploration" aspect of the game, but I would much rather be able to adjust my walking speed.

 

My proposal: Make walking speed (outside of combat) an adjustable speed that ranges from slow to fast. Let players choose how fast they want to walk.

 

Why:

1- Once you've completed a local map, that adventuring aspect is long-gone, and sometimes you just need to get to place A to do X, Y, Z and then go back to place B to do R, S, T.

 

2- Different people have different "biological speeds" in that certain people might find one walking speed too fast, and others might find it too slow. Being able to adjust it to a player's preference is always the best option.

 

3- If it comes down to it being too fast and engaging in battle, there's a "pause when enemy is seen" option, right? This shouldn't be an issue.

 

4- Customization is always better.

 

I really liked the IWD AI pathfinding option, because it really made the game a much better experienec for me - I cranked it up all the way, but also knew when to take it slow (innuendo!) when the time was right and it got hard (more innuendo!). This is just another variation of "slow mode for combat."

Edited April 10, 2014 by Hormalakh

[rjshae]

When you are walking faster, your detection radii should shrink and your sneakiness should decrease.

[Hormalakh]

no no. no changes in mechanics. just a faster walking speed.

[Pipyui]

I personally don't see a need for variable walking speed outside of combat.  I say just give the party a fixed travel pace, and factor speed differences in combat only.  No boots of haste bull, no scale down to slowest party member (why would I keep an Orlan if (s)he dragged my whole party down to her pace?).

[sesobebo]

i don't think that "match to slowest" is a permanently enforced thing; more like a toggle.

[Lephys]

no no. no changes in mechanics. just a faster walking speed.

I have to disagree here. If there's no change in mechanics, then there's absolutely no reason not to just use the fastest speed all the time. I mean, isn't that why you pointed out an actual condition for when it would be nice to move faster? I.e. once you've "completed" a map, but just need to get around it, maybe explore a couple of crannies you missed?

 

If there's no condition, then the only possible reason for moving more SLOWly is just "this makes me RP happy."

[Hormalakh]

The reason that players move slowly is the one given by Josh Sawyer on Something Awful.

 

 

 

Not a big deal, but it seems to me, 'match speed to slowest' should probably be the default, and then ~power users~ can switch it off for specific circumstances.

It is the default. BTW it only matches speed for clicks made out of the combat state. If you initiate any movement while the combat state is active, everyone moves at full individual speed.

 

quote

 

 

The fastest characters characters are extremely fast and you'd eventually be zipping around the maps in no time. I think it negatively impacts exploration when the pace gets accelerated.

quote Edited April 10, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Lephys]

 

The fastest characters characters are extremely fast and you'd eventually be zipping around the maps in no time. I think it negatively impacts exploration when the pace gets accelerated.

quote

 

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Either the game would have to make a hard decision on when you're exploring and when you're not before allowing you to move faster, or there'd have to be an implicit reason not to explore with the faster speed (such as "you are super noisy, tromping around like that, and you're drawing a lot of attention from hungry/hostile things"). Thus, when exploring, you'd have some kind of a reason (if not that particular one) to move at "exploration" speed. But, like you said, if you've pretty much cleared a map, and really just need to get from point A to point B to go pick something back up or something (covering already-covered ground), it would be really nice to move faster, and doing so is no longer (under the circumstances) detracting from anything, because there's no longer exploration taking place.

 

Think of it kinda like the blackness behind fog of war. Not-having it there would be detrimental to the whole "I don't know what's there" aspect of exploration. However, once you've visited a spot, the terrain remains revealed at that spot, even when you leave. Why? Because you can't uncover the same information multiple times.

 

Anywho, I just think if there's going to be an option to move faster, then the way to do it is to give it penalties that only apply when there's still exploration to be had, thus strongly encouraging the character to only use it when it's not going to hurt anything (rather than trying to restrict the character to when they are and aren't able to move faster, since I don't even know how you'd determine that.) I honestly can't think of any other way of doing it that isn't just "you can run around faster instead of slower, all the time, with no penalty whatsoever, situational or not."

[Hormalakh]

I don't think his point was that it broke the game rules: it's more of a matter of making sure the player stays in the right "mood", i.e. when you explore, you want to "stop and smell the roses." 

 

Making something that is mechanically different takes time and balancing. I don't want any of that. I just want something simple: the ability to change the "game speed" for lack of a better term when it comes to moving around outside of combat. You start making up mechanical rules and it becomes more complicated, not to mention, really unnecessary.

 

Moving outside of combat doesn't mean that enemies move slower comparatively. It means everything just moves faster altogether.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Lephys]

I don't think his point was that it broke the game rules: it's more of a matter of making sure the player stays in the right "mood", i.e. when you explore, you want to "stop and smell the roses."

Yeah, I realize that. The objective is still the objective, though: to have players move (outside of combat) at a regulated pace, for the purposes of exploration, no matter the reason.

 

Making something that is mechanically different takes time and balancing. I don't want any of that. I just want something simple: the ability to change the "game speed" for lack of a better term when it comes to moving around outside of combat. You start making up mechanical rules and it becomes more complicated, not to mention, really unnecessary.

Well, to be fair, it's not really making up any "new" mechanics. Toggling Stealth mode on your characters already causes them to move more slowly and, simultaneously, have their detection radii reduced. If you were to have a "run instead of walk" option, or something similar, it would already make sense and fit right into the current mechanic that affects both move speed and detection together. It would be sort of like an "anti-stealth mode." So, unnecessary? Sure, I'll give you that. But, that isn't to say that there'd be no reason for it at all. It just wouldn't be integral.

 

Moving outside of combat doesn't mean that enemies move slower comparatively. It means everything just moves faster altogether.

True. I hadn't thought of that. I thought you meant some kind of run-vs-walk setting/mode that applied only to your party (just like how Stealth toggle slows them down relative to other things). Of course, the fact still remains that, if you simply add in a "speed up time" function, we have to ask ourselves what reason there is to not just use it all the time. And, as you pointed out with Josh's reasoning on the matter, wouldn't being able to move much faster through an area, regardless of whether or not it was relative to other things or just because everything was moving faster, still kill the "mood" for exploration? If so, how would you regulate that? Which brings us back to the whole "Do you restrict it outright, discourage it with mechanics, or just do nothing about it at all?" question.

 

Does that make sense?

[Hormalakh]

True. I hadn't thought of that. I thought you meant some kind of run-vs-walk setting/mode that applied only to your party (just like how Stealth toggle slows them down relative to other things). Of course, the fact still remains that, if you simply add in a "speed up time" function, we have to ask ourselves what reason there is to not just use it all the time. And, as you pointed out with Josh's reasoning on the matter, wouldn't being able to move much faster through an area, regardless of whether or not it was relative to other things or just because everything was moving faster, still kill the "mood" for exploration? If so, how would you regulate that? Which brings us back to the whole "Do you restrict it outright, discourage it with mechanics, or just do nothing about it at all?" question.

 

 

You let the player decide what "kills the mood" and what doesn't. Everyone has their own speed that they feel comfortable playing. Some like it faster, some like it slower. Sometimes you want to bump it up, sometimes slow it down.

 

Let the player decide.

[Lephys]

You let the player decide what "kills the mood" and what doesn't. Everyone has their own speed that they feel comfortable playing. Some like it faster, some like it slower. Sometimes you want to bump it up, sometimes slow it down.

 

Let the player decide.

Ohhh. So you're disagreeing with any restriction whatsoever? I didn't realize that. Yeah, I mean, that's not wholly unreasonable or anything.

 

I dunno, though. I mean, where do you draw the line? If people can move, say, twice as fast as "normal" speed, then why stop there? Why not just allow as fast as human eyes can possibly keep up with?

 

Or, why not just have the default be really really fast, and have the option to slow it down as much as you want? And, I realize that there are auto-pause settings, but, that doesn't change the fact that you most likely want to approach combat encounters with some modicum of finesse and tactical thought. Or, rather, even if you don't (if you literally just want to move as fast as possible, run head-first into every combat, and still play through the game), it becomes less and less likely that you're actually going to get through the game. At some point, you're running into tricky-enough encounters that you're going to have to reload or something and try them again with an actual "don't just run straight into them because you were impatiently getting about the map" approach, in which case, why didn't you just move a little slower to begin with?

 

All that time saved from speed is kinda thrown out the window if you lose tactical effectiveness by running blatantly into every combat scenario there is.

 

*Shrug*. I don't have a problem with the sheer idea of letting players choose the speed at which "time flows," effectively, but it just seems like that leads to a lot of other "why not?"s if there's not a line drawn somewhere, and I'm not sure what the foundation of that line is.

 

I honestly still think making you more easily detectable is a good approach, because, if you're going to just rely on auto-pause upon entering combat because you're moving so fast, then you're obviously not very worried about being detected by enemies anyway.

 

Unless the move speed is just ungodly slow outside of combat, you should be able to get around with relative ease and swiftness already, especially if you're bypassing a lot of stuff (which, again, the whole "auto-pause will stop you when it needs to" mentality is kind of in-line with "I'm not really meticulously exploring, here").

 

I dunno. I know I'm weird, so maybe that's just me.

[Hormalakh]

Let's be reasonable. "As fast as human eyes can see" is unreasonable. The speeds allowed in IWD1's options is a good first approximation.

[Pipyui]

It's my feeling that the narrator needs set the pace of their own work.  There's only so much player agency to impart in game mechanics; at some point a game needs to define its own rules and enforce them upon the player in order to define itself at all.  If you watch a movie at 3x speed, is it the same experience?  You're watching the same film, unabridged, but does the narrative hold the same impact when dictated to your own pacing?  And why not speed it up then?  It's the same movie experience in 1/3 the time!  Efficiency!

 

But I would argue that it's not the same.  It's just a shortcut where time is valued more than the experience, at cost of the latter.  Travel and exploration are a part of the narrative of a game like this - even when it feels slow and tedious, and breaks up the action with drawn out interludes of solitude in the forest, or chaos in the market, or slogging through the dark corners of an "abandoned" mine.  I don't need to be given the option to zip past these passages of inactivity, because like the drawn silence between music tracks to break the monotony, they serve a purpose in their own way; and the game is not the same without them, even if we like to believe it is. *stuborn face*

 

Sorry to rant, I found my sentiments on this matter were considerably stronger than I would have thought.

No hard feelings, anybody.  I must go discipline myself for having the audacity to hold strong opinions towards anything. (that is not satire, I'm actually, unreasonably, kinda pissed at myself (unnecessary information!  I'd best get to sleep...))

[Hormalakh]

Your words are true when you're exploring the first time. But when you're going back and forth between local maps to run errands/do one quick thing/restock/etc, either you allow the player "fast-travel" (which I would argue would require some sort of lore behind it) or you allow the player to adjust the walking speed as needed.

 

A mage spell like "teleport" would be nice, except it doesn't help parties without mages. Other ideas are also welcome. The least difficult implementaion, in my opinion would be adjustable game speeds.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Lephys]

Let's be reasonable. "As fast as human eyes can see" is unreasonable. The speeds allowed in IWD1's options is a good first approximation.

I meant "as fast as you can feasibly keep up with what's being visually displayed to you." I wasn't trying to be ridiculous. Sorry for the wording.

 

Your words are true when you're exploring the first time. But when you're going back and forth between local maps to run errands/do one quick thing/restock/etc, either you allow the player "fast-travel" (which I would argue would require some sort of lore behind it) or you allow the player to adjust the walking speed as needed.

 

A mage spell like "teleport" would be nice, except it doesn't help parties without mages. Other ideas are also welcome. The least difficult implementaion, in my opinion would be a speed toggle.

But, see, that's why I suggest a simple, singular faster move speed with a situational penalty (running instead of walking, but being more noticeable). You're basically saying that a "regular" move speed is perfectly reasonable and there's not really any need to go faster... until you just want to cover ground. At which point, you just want to go as fast as you can. But, obviously there's a reasonable limit, so running instead of walking would allow this. There'd be no need for more than one additional speed. Like you said, a toggle.

 

And really the only thing it should affect is combat/detection. Why? Because, when there's a threat around, you're being reckless. There's no reason there shouldn't be somedetriment for that, just like there is for the player simply attack-clicking his way through combat instead of using tactics. It's not that you CAN'T do it. It's just that it affects things.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Lephys

[Hormalakh]

Going "as fast as your slowest party member" and changing it to 1x-3x as fast would still be better than nothing at all. Again, you're making this out to be a bigger deal than it is. You give a range that MOST people would find reasonable, and you go with that.

 

Otherwise your argument works for any sliding-scale option given to us, e.g. who determines how loud the 100% music/sound or the 100% contrast/brightness is? The ranges are made within reasonable ranges and 98% of people can deal with those speeds.

[Lephys]

Going "as fast as your slowest party member" and changing it to 1x-3x as fast would still be better than nothing at all. Again, you're making this out to be a bigger deal than it is. You give a range that MOST people would find reasonable, and you go with that.

 

Otherwise your argument works for any sliding-scale option given to us, e.g. who determines how loud the 100% music/sound or the 100% contrast/brightness is? The ranges are made within reasonable ranges and 98% of people can deal with those speeds.

No, I don't think it's a big deal. I'm talking a lot about it, sure. I think it's a very small deal, though.

 

Okay, here's my thought in simple form:

 

If you can just adjust your movement speed with no ramifications, then why should Stealth movement slow you down? If moving faster in non-stealth is going to affect your detection when you encounter some hostile entities, then why isn't moving even FASTER going to affect that?

 

Or, fast travel. If fast travel is reasonable between maps, why isn't it feasible between places on the same map?

 

*shrug*, I just don't think a move speed/time-passing slider ("time-passing" referring to if you just move faster, but not relative to other things) is really benefitting anyone.

 

Volume and other options don't affect the active gameplay, so they can be whatever you want. The brightness slider possibly allows you to black out your game screen, depending on your monitor and its settings.

[JFSOCC]

I believe there is a toggle, no?

[Walsingham]

 

True. I hadn't thought of that. I thought you meant some kind of run-vs-walk setting/mode that applied only to your party (just like how Stealth toggle slows them down relative to other things). Of course, the fact still remains that, if you simply add in a "speed up time" function, we have to ask ourselves what reason there is to not just use it all the time. And, as you pointed out with Josh's reasoning on the matter, wouldn't being able to move much faster through an area, regardless of whether or not it was relative to other things or just because everything was moving faster, still kill the "mood" for exploration? If so, how would you regulate that? Which brings us back to the whole "Do you restrict it outright, discourage it with mechanics, or just do nothing about it at all?" question.

 

 

You let the player decide what "kills the mood" and what doesn't. Everyone has their own speed that they feel comfortable playing. Some like it faster, some like it slower. Sometimes you want to bump it up, sometimes slow it down.

 

Let the player decide.

 

 

In general I'm in favour of customisation. But customisation can ruin a game experience.

 

If I give a man a 25 year old malt whisky and he tries to neck it in one shot then he's a fool. And he's wasted the whisky. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY he will complain about the price.

 

Customisation should not be encouraged where it will wreck the playing experience.

[Archmage Silver]

If something similar to Boots of Speed is included, I'd keep the walking speed outside combat fairly standard, something along the lines of BG2. Otherwise you'll just devalue the movement speed boosting items. I'm sure movement speed increase will pop up as one of the earliest mods though.

 

Edit: Typo

Edited April 11, 2014 by Archmage Silver

[Hormalakh]

My biggest concern is that it'll be too slow. Especially with the bigger local maps, I don't want to spend a good deal of time just walking here and there for one-off chores.

[Archmage Silver]

That would depend a lot on how large the maps are going to be. In the original Baldur's Gate the maps were bloody huge (for its time anyway), and the movement speed was, well, let's say inadequate. So too slow movement speed is bad, I agree. However, I think it was fine in BG2 considering its average area size, given the availability of Haste, Boots of Speed, potions and other movement speed boosting items.

 

Addendum: if there were to be no movement speed boosting skills or items, then it might become an issue. AFAIK, we don't have the definitive answer to this question yet.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Archmage Silver

[Hormalakh]

That would depend a lot on how large the maps are going to be. In the original Baldur's Gate the maps were bloody huge (for its time anyway), and the movement speed was, well, let's say inadequate. So too slow movement speed is bad, I agree. However, I think it was fine in BG2 considering its average area size, given the availability of Haste, Boots of Speed, potions and other movement speed boosting items.

 

Addendum: if there were to be no movement speed boosting skills or items, then it might become an issue. AFAIK, we don't have the definitive answer to this question yet.

 

Even if you had boots of speed, everyone would need it, or at least your slowest party member, because as it currently stands, non-combat movement is locked to slowest party member.

[teknoman2]

 you should not need to walk to the end of the map to leave it. unless you are in combat, you could just open your map and go to another location.